had been the place of my family
altar, not because it was remarkable in any way, but because since 1850
it had been the habitat of my mother's people and because it was filled
with my father's pioneer friends. "Is it worth while to rebuild?" I
asked myself. For the time I lost direction. I had no plan.

The sight of my white-haired father wandering about the yard, dazed,
bewildered, his eyes filled with a look of despair at last decided me.
Realizing that this was his true home; that no other roof could have the
same appeal, and he could not be transplanted, I resolved to cover his
head; to make it possible for him to live out his few remaining years
under this roof with his granddaughters. "For his sake and the
children's sake," I announced to Zulime, "I shall begin at once to clear
away and restore. Before the winter comes you shall all be back in the
old House. Perhaps we can eat our Thanksgiving dinner in the restored
dining-room."

Whether she fully shared my desire to rebuild or whether she believed in
my ability to carry out my plan so quickly I can not say. In such
matters she was not decisive--she rested on my stubborn will.

The day came on--glorious, odorous, golden--but we saw little of its
beauty. Engaged in digging the family silver out of the embers, and
collecting my scattered books and papers I had no time to look at the
sky. Occasionally, as I looked up from my work I saw my little daughters
playing with childish intentness among the fallen leaves in my
neighbor's yard, and in mistaken confidence I remarked what a blessing
it is that childhood can so easily forget disaster.

I did not realize then, nor till many months after, how profound the
shock had been to them. For years after the event they started at every
unusual sound and woke at night screaming of fire.

All that day and all the days of the week which followed they played
with the same singular insect-like absorption and at last I began to get
some notion of their horror. They refused to enter the yard. "I don't
want to see it," Mary Isabel wailed. Then she asked, "Will it ever be
home for us again?"

"Yes," I answered with final determination. "I'll put it back just as it
was before the fire came. It shall be nicer than ever when I am done."

Before night I had engaged a crew of men to clear away. Thereafter I
lived like a man in a tunnel. I saw almost nothing of the opulent,
golden sunshine, nothing of the exquisite foliage, nothing